“The E.L.C.A. isn’t necessarily quite as surprising in the religious sense, but the message it’s sending is, yes, not only are more Americans from a religious perspective getting behind gay rights, but these folks are not just quote unquote coastal liberals.”
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has voted to allow the ordination of gays and lesbians in committed relationships – previously, only celibate gays and lesbians had been ordained. My soon-to-be-ordained pastor friend has an interesting view from the inside:
“A boutique version of protestantism, in which women and the divorced are full members but gays are not, has no future in this country. That said, I really do think the church is threatened by various gnosticisms and post-Christian spiritualities, and I would rather have those who are presently disgruntled within the church to resist that tendency—which is hardly confined to the left of American Christianity (see Bush, George W.). It makes me very sad that some Lutherans saw in this vote a synecdoche of the whole crisis of American Christianity, when it was nothing of the sort.”